US Air Force Stores Last Three Super Tucanos After Brief Test Role
The US Air Force has retired its final three A-29 Super Tucanos, ending an attempt to repurpose aircraft connected to the former Afghan Air Force mission. The turboprops are now fully sealed at Edwards Air Force Base in California and are not expected to fly again for the service.
The reversal came roughly two years after the aircraft reached Edwards for a new assignment with the Air Force Test Pilot School. That transfer appeared to rescue a small, surplus fleet by giving it work in flight-test training and research. Instead, the Air Force concluded that the A-29 did not meet the school’s intended use and is now considering other options for spin training and mission-systems instruction.
A second mission ends at Edwards
The three aircraft arrived at Edwards in 2024, becoming the first newly assigned aircraft type for the Test Pilot School in nearly 30 years. Their proposed jobs included stall and spin testing, instruction involving modern sensors and weapons systems, and research that could otherwise require more expensive Air Force jets.
The logic was straightforward. A robust turboprop with modern avionics could give students repeated exposure to unusual flight conditions while reducing flying-hour and maintenance demands on T-38 and F-16 aircraft. The A-29 also had external stations that could support different research equipment, making it a potentially flexible test platform rather than merely a light-attack aircraft without an operational squadron.
Putting that plan into practice required more than transferring the airplanes. After arriving at Edwards, the A-29s underwent six months of maintenance with Sierra Nevada Corporation, while instructors studied the aircraft and developed procedures. The school said in July 2025 that it was integrating the type into its curriculum, initially emphasizing stall and spin training.
That second life proved short. An Edwards spokesperson said the aircraft were thoroughly evaluated but did not satisfy the Test Pilot School’s intended requirement. The result is a complete fleet-level change: all three have moved from prospective instructional assets to stored aircraft.
Storage still requires contracted support
Retirement does not eliminate the maintenance burden. An October 29 Air Force notice outlined plans for a sole-source contract with SNC to provide on-call support while the aircraft remain at Edwards. The work covers safe storage, environmental compliance and ground movement around the base, including attention to problems such as oil leaks.
Sealing an aircraft is a preservation measure, not simply parking it outdoors. Stored military aircraft can be taped and covered with sealant to keep animals out and limit corrosion. Although such treatments can be removed when an aircraft is regenerated, the Air Force says these three A-29s are not expected to return to its flight operations. Their ultimate disposition has not been specified.
A tiny Air Force fleet from a much larger program
The three-aircraft fleet was a small offshoot of a considerably larger US-backed procurement effort. The Air Force acquired the aircraft in 2020 and 2021 for experimentation and a foreign advisory mission tied to efforts to build Afghanistan’s fixed-wing attack capability. It never operated them as a conventional US light-attack squadron. By 2022, after the former Afghan government had collapsed, the service had determined that the aircraft no longer matched its operational missions and planned to dispose of them.
The broader Afghan program was much larger. The US government procured 26 A-29s for Afghanistan, although not all reached the Afghan Air Force before the Taliban returned to power. Moody Air Force Base in Georgia was selected as the training location in 2014, and the first Afghan pilots graduated in late 2015 before initial aircraft deliveries to Afghanistan began in 2016.
Embraer developed the Super Tucano in Brazil, but its partnership with SNC established a second production line in the United States. Aircraft supplied through the US program for Afghanistan were built domestically rather than in Brazil, giving the procurement an American manufacturing component beyond the Air Force’s final three-aircraft fleet.
Globally, the A-29 remains far from an orphan design. More than 260 had been delivered worldwide by 2023, and Brazil alone purchased 99. The aircraft’s international scale makes the Air Force outcome more specific than a rejection of the platform as a whole: a widely operated design lost the particular US mission that brought it into the inventory, briefly found another purpose at Edwards and is now sealed while the service pays to keep it safely stored.
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By David Whitaker — Associate editor for AMI’s aerospace and drone systems desk, translating flight systems, aircraft programs, spaceflight, and UAV developments into accessible technical stories.
